Pilar Corrias is delighted to present Conversation Galante, a group exhibition of new paintings that celebrate conversation, playfulness and intimacy. Please join us tomorrow evening at the preview from 6 to 8pm.

The show takes its title from Nicolas Lancret’s eponymous 1719 painting, which depicts a group of figures in a garden playing music, canoodling, gazing into one another’s eyes. The setting suggests that the group have drifted away from an oppressive chateau and its règles du jeu, finding a patch of land that reflects Vladimir Nabokov’s notion of ‘aesthetic bliss’: ‘a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.’ This exhibition similarly looks to offer a space for new relationships – among garrulous viewers, artists and paintings – to flourish.